The bottom line B-Mac and cheese, the Oilers will be handing us our lunch in a few years once the Sedins have retired and Kesler is in 30'ville. The Kassians, Gaunce's, Schroeders, Tanev's and Jensen's are no match for the young whipper snapper Oilers. lets be real here. Our prospect pool is completely void of any 1st line players, top two pairings on D. We have 2nd 3rd line potential and 4-5 d-man potential but no top flight talent waiting in the Wings to be replacing the Sedins and to be competing with young talent rich Oilers, Avalanche and Wild in our Division. Dark Days for this organization in a few years my good man.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

RoyalDude wrote:The bottom line B-Mac and cheese, the Oilers will be handing us our lunch in a few years once the Sedins have retired and Kesler is in 30'ville. The Kassians, Gaunce's, Schroeders, Tanev's and Jensen's are no match for the young whipper snapper Oilers. lets be real here. Our prospect pool is completely void of any 1st line players, top two pairings on D. We have 2nd 3rd line potential and 4-5 d-man potential but no top flight talent waiting in the Wings to be replacing the Sedins and to be competing with young talent rich Oilers, Avalanche and Wild in our Division. Dark Days for this organization in a few years my good man.

Ok Nostradamus. Your meat puppet buddies at HF predicted Ryan Kesler would never be more than a 3rd line player. They didn't think Janik Hansen and Alex Burrows were more than fringe NHL players and they sure as shit didn't think Kevin Bieksa would be a top 3 d man.

Bottom line is Nicklas Jensen and Zack Kassian should be top 6 players and so could Brendan Gaunce.Ryan Kesler is 28 , so there is 2/3 of a top 6 forward group. The team will also have a nice chunk of money to spend when the twins start to fade and retire.

There doesn't appear to be a stud in the system at the moment and in hindsight the Keith Ballard trade has hurt the team in that we could have had Evgeny Kuznetsov, Brock Nelson, Charlie Coyle, Emerson Etem or Justin Faulk. I could care less about losing Michael Grabner as he wasn't that good of a player.Who knows though, one of Jensen, Gaunce, Kevin Connauton, or Kassian may really take off and come out of nowhere kinda like a Ryan Kesler, Jamie Benn or Kris Letang. Not to say Kesler Benn and Letang weren't highly touted coming out of junior/college but these players have really exceded expectations.

There will also be a return on the Luongo trade and perhaps MG will flip KB 4 and pick up a 2nd rounder or a decent young prospect for an asset that has been terribly mismanaged by Alain Vigneault. Rick Bowness had KB in Phoenix. How in the hell did he not know the guy is a trainwreck on the right side of the ice ?

RoyalDude wrote:The bottom line B-Mac and cheese, the Oilers will be handing us our lunch in a few years once the Sedins have retired and Kesler is in 30'ville. The Kassians, Gaunce's, Schroeders, Tanev's and Jensen's are no match for the young whipper snapper Oilers. lets be real here. Our prospect pool is completely void of any 1st line players, top two pairings on D. We have 2nd 3rd line potential and 4-5 d-man potential but no top flight talent waiting in the Wings to be replacing the Sedins and to be competing with young talent rich Oilers, Avalanche and Wild in our Division. Dark Days for this organization in a few years my good man.

Ok Nostradamus. Your meat puppet buddies at HF predicted Ryan Kesler would never be more than a 3rd line player. They didn't think Janik Hansen and Alex Burrows were more than fringe NHL players and they sure as shit didn't think Kevin Bieksa would be a top 3 d man.

Bottom line is Nicklas Jensen and Zack Kassian should be top 6 players and so could Brendan Gaunce.Ryan Kesler is 28 , so there is 2/3 of a top 6 forward group. The team will also have a nice chunk of money to spend when the twins start to fade and retire.

There doesn't appear to be a stud in the system at the moment and in hindsight the Keith Ballard trade has hurt the team in that we could have had Evgeny Kuznetsov, Brock Nelson, Charlie Coyle, Emerson Etem or Justin Faulk. I could care less about losing Michael Grabner as he wasn't that good of a player.Who knows though, one of Jensen, Gaunce, Kevin Connauton, or Kassian may really take off and come out of nowhere kinda like a Ryan Kesler, Jamie Benn or Kris Letang. Not to say Kesler Benn and Letang weren't highly touted coming out of junior/college but these players have really exceded expectations.

There will also be a return on the Luongo trade and perhaps MG will flip KB 4 and pick up a 2nd rounder or a decent young prospect for an asset that has been terribly mismanaged by Alain Vigneault. Rick Bowness had KB in Phoenix. How in the hell did he not know the guy is a trainwreck on the right side of the ice ?

Listen Big Mac Meal...If Yak, turns out, in which duh he will...the Oilers have two first lines for the next decade set in place and probably the best one/two punch, first unit PP, 2nd unit PP with a fantastic QB in Schultz. Do not be surprised to see all four of the names - Hall, Eberle, RNH and Yak in the top 10 in scoring in a few years. Hell, Eberle, RNH and Hall were close to that last year as zit faced teenagers, if it weren't for injuries.

Combined with the fact that they have in place two first lines in those 4 forwards, they seemingly have their top 2 pairing Dee in place as well in Schultz and Klefbom. Make a few deals here and there, ie Pjaaravi, Gagner, Omark, Hemsky to tidy up the loose ends, this group could easily bring back Lord Stanley to Edmonton once again.

Bottom line is B Mac, Hall, Eberle and RNH have already proven themselves as first line NHL'ers. Kassian, Jensen and Gaunce haven't even proved they can play in the NHL, nevermind being top line players. Lets be real bro, Kassian, Jensen and Gaunce will never be in the same league as Hall, RNH, Eberle not to mention Yak.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

Edmonton won't be able to get all those players under the cap if they turn out as good as you and gas huffing friends think they will be. Convenient of you to ignore my points and just gush about the Oiler players.

Break up the Oilers. They have averaged 66 points the last three years. Must have been injuries that kept them from breaking the 70 point barrier.

Listen Blobby Big Mack...the Canucks do not have one prospect on the latest Top 50 Prospects of the NHL. Yakupov ranked 1st, Schultz ranked 22nd, Klefbom ranked 29th. Not one Canuck, Blobby Mac, not one Canuck - http://www.hockeysfuture.com/prospect-rankings/

The Penguins have 3. The Red Wings have 2. It proves that you can still find good players later in the draft in which Gillis has not been able to. Tired of the excuse, "well the Canucks haven't been drafting from a favorable position since Gillis has been in charge!" A big pile of stinky ass bull shite that is batman.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

System Overview: Vancouver was a hard system to rank because they have a fair amount of talent, but there are question marks up and down their pipeline. Can Jensen get some consistency and have a big season? How high is the upside for Gaunce and Corrado? Can Connauton defend in the NHL? Will Rodin break out? How for real is Alex Grenier? Did Eddie Lack's big seasons come from his talent level, or from bringing a goalie in his mid-20's in the AHL? I could see an argument that there's a league-average amount of talent in this system, but there are a lot of things to watch for this team going into next season.